


Between End and Beginning

by dustjacketduck



Category: Princess Tutu
Genre: Gen, I figured better safe than sorry on the rating and archive warnings, Pre-Series, The Prince and The Raven, the character deaths were in canon and are only referenced here
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-08
Updated: 2016-06-08
Packaged: 2018-07-13 01:21:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 458
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7132367
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dustjacketduck/pseuds/dustjacketduck
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It seemed their battle would go on for eternity.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Between End and Beginning

The Prince gripped his sword in trembling hands, flesh caked with sweat and mud and blood. He raised the blade, blocking another of the Raven’s blows, staggering backwards with the force of it.

Every breath was a struggle. He wondered how he even stood some days, let alone went through the motions of this never-ending scripted combat. But his arms carried out every movement of the sword like they were attached to strings.

He was a puppet, he had come to realize; a very tired puppet stuck repeating the same miserable show over and over, without even the puppetmaster remaining to guide him.

His weary golden eyes struggled to look up enough to even glare at the Raven. He didn't want this monster to be his last sight. He wanted to see his Knight again, to see Princess Tutu again-

It was never easy to remind himself that they were both dead. He knew he was asking the world the impossible.

The Raven was beyond weary too. Its crow minions had creased their attacking long ago, for which the Prince was thankful. He was only a few years a teenager, and the fact that he had stalemated the demon itself was miracle enough- he didn't need anything else to deal with.

He raised his sword and went in for an attack of his own, not even feeling a dull surprise when it was unsuccessful.

Then the Raven spoke.

“I'm sick and tired of this!” cried the Raven, its tones still more akin to a snake than a bird and altogether unnerving, but shocking the Prince nonetheless.

“I'm sick and tired of this!” cried the Prince as well. Tired of this neverending battle that seemed so hopeless, sick of all this bloodshed and death.

The Raven’s features contorted into a hideous grin, sending his opponent on edge.

There was a grinding of gears, a ticking of clockwork, and then the beast fled. With a cry, the Prince pursued it on wobbly legs that he could only will to stop aching and to move faster.

They escaped their story with a violence that rivalled their battle, in a tornado of fluttering pages and a hurricane of black and blue ink that left them bruised and dizzy. They bridged the gap between fiction and reality that the unfinished ending had not yet opened for them yet, forcing themselves out of a world that did not exist.

Maybe it was fatigue, maybe it was a simple lack, or inability, to comprehend, but the moments directly after the Prince and the Raven left their story were hazy on all accounts.

But the Prince did remember that the last thing he heard before his eyes dulled into heartlessness was an old man's gleeful laugh.


End file.
